by Nick Cole
There are maybe eight miles between here and the secret testing area.
You are trying to think of other things.
Yes.
The Old Man watched the Boy as he rode atop the turret, eyes constantly scanning the far horizon.
Yes, I am trying to think of other things than the right tread of this tank.
“What shall we call the valley now that we have seen it?” he asked his granddaughter over the intercom.
There was a pause and he knew she was thinking. He knew her face when it thought. The pressed lips, the eyes searching the sky. Thinking.
“It wasn’t scary, Poppa.”
“No, not so much.”
Remember the fall to the bottom. That was scary to me when we drove in the dark and I could not tell where the edge was and what would happen next. It is even scarier to me now when I think back about it. That is how you know things were really very dangerous, when you think back and are still frightened about what might have happened. That is the fear of what-might-have-been.
“How about . . .” she said through the dull hum of the communications net.
The Bottom of an Ocean Valley.
The Roller-Coaster Valley.
The Valley of the Longest Night.
“How about the ‘There Is Nothing to be Afraid of Here Valley,’ Poppa?”
How about that?
SINCE THAT AFTERNOON, after the long night of driving through the bottom of the once-ocean, the Old Man had felt the falseness in the right tread, and if he listened closely, a metallic clank that had not been there before. A clank he sometimes heard and other times, when he was sure he would hear it, not at all.
Maybe it is just an uncertainty and nothing more?
For now?
Yes, for now. And it could be these jury-rigged joysticks Sergeant Major Preston fixed up. That could be the problem.
Then you should ask your granddaughter to take over and guide the tank from the driver’s compartment. See if she notices it also.
But the Old Man could not bring himself to ask her.
If it’s true . . .
Then it is true.
Yes.
That night under desert skies turned western flames surrendering to the blue comfort of night, they sat and watched their fire.
I cannot stop thinking about the bad tread.
But what can you do about it?
“Where are we going?” asked the Boy.
The Old Man looked up to see both of them watching him.
“Tomorrow,” he began, “at noon, I’ll call the General and find out where we must go exactly. From what she has told me, we must find a device somewhere within this area. She tells me the device will help free her and those trapped within their bunker.”
“What does this device do? Is it a weapon?” asked the Boy.
“I don’t know,” mumbled the Old Man, feeding dry sticks into the fire.
But you should know.
Yes.
“Poppa?”
“Yes.”
“I’m hungry.”
And there is that too.
JUST BEFORE NOON the Boy raised his hand. The gesture was so sudden and the Boy so long unmoving, the Old Man felt electrified at its sudden movement and meaning. The Old Man stopped the tank. Below them, in a long valley amid the salt flats, lay the once-secret base, Area 51, where Natalie had directed them to find the Laser Target Designator.
The Boy scrambled across the tank and shouted above the engine’s roar in the Old Man’s face.
“There are goats, big ones, along that ridge.” The Boy pointed toward a jumble of rocks that looked like some bygone battleship crossing the ocean of a wide desert. The Old Man could not see any goats.
But he is young and his eyes are good.
“I’ll hunt one and bring it down into the base. It might take me a while.”
The Old Man nodded and the Boy climbed down from the rumbling tank and loped off in his awkward manner toward the distant rocks.
Later, after the engine had faded from whine to silence, as the wind whispered through the ancient hangars, sweeping tumbleweeds along the dry runway, the Old Man watched the distant rocks and saw nothing of the Boy.
“Where is this laser machine, Poppa?”
The Old Man turned to the base.
There is no one here and there hasn’t been for a long time.
The broken stalk of a control tower rose above the airfield. Debris remained scattered across the blistered tarmac.
“She said we would find it in there,” said the Old Man, pointing toward the tower. “In the basement.”
They began to cross the runway.
“What is this place, Poppa?”
I know.
I knew.
It was a myth. Even then.
“A place where they kept and made weapons.”
“Do you think there will be salvage here, Poppa?”
“It seems like a good place for salvage.”
It was a place they made weapons we should have never needed. I can say that. I have seen what happens if you make a weapon. If you hide it somewhere secret and even pretend that you will never use it. Pretend that it doesn’t even exist. Someday, you will use it.
And others must live with the consequences.
Yes.
Chapter 24
The work of the day began in earnest once they’d located the entrance to the tower. It was hard work. Crowbar work. At one point they’d needed to use the tank and a tow chain to remove a section of concrete blocking the entrance.
Later, when the door was revealed and they’d stopped to rest, the Old Man, sweating thickly and drinking warm water, watched his granddaughter wander among the twisted and burnt remains of bat-winged bombers, gray with dust, sinking beneath the white salt and sand that swept in off the dry lake.
The Old Man was thinking of water.
How much is left?
And.
Where will we find more?
He turned to the aircraft scattered across the horizon.
There was a time when I would have wondered at the story of this place and those aircraft. But only because there was salvage here. Not because of the story of what happened on that last, long-lost day.
Not because of that, my friend?
No. There is too much to think of. There is water. There is this device we must find. There is food. Will the Boy be able to catch us a goat?
Goat would be nice with the pepper that remains.
And salt?
I do not think we can eat this salt.
Still, salt would be nice.
Yes.
And the tread that is going bad.
And fuel too. Do not forget fuel. You must think of fuel.
How could I not?
The Old Man took a drink of warm water from his canteen and sighed. A small breeze skittered across the desert and cooled the sweat on his neck and face.
He thought of the meal that the boy in the book would bring Santiago. Rice and bananas.
I always like to imagine that there were bits of fried pork in it.
And don’t forget the coffee with milk and sugar, my friend. That was the best part.
Yes.
This place. Its story. I’ll tell you. They were caught by surprise. No bombs. No nuclear bombs. No, an enemy attacked this place. There were reports of the Chinese offshore in those last weeks, but after the first EMP, the news was thin and, really, I can say this now to myself since there is no one left to contradict me, the news we hung on then was of little value. I remember though the rumors of Chinese airstrikes in the morning hours. The names of bridges and oil refineries I must have known at the time going up in the early morning darkness. We saw the smoke at dawn. That was when we began to flee.
It was Los Angeles.
Yes. That was it.
I bet Natalie knows.
One day these bombers we trusted in will sink beneath the salt and the sand and who will know what happ
ened to them? To us. Or who will even be interested?
There is always someone.
But what if there isn’t?
The Old Man watched his granddaughter return from her explorations. She was holding a jacket.
“I found this in a bag behind the seat in one of the planes, Poppa!”
She held it up triumphantly. It was green and shiny on the outside, almost brand-new. And on the inside it was orange.
A flight jacket.
And what if there isn’t anyone left?
The Old Man watched her smile.
He nodded.
There must be.
AT DUSK THE BOY returned, limping across the sands, the dressed goat slung over his shoulders.
When the Old Man saw the shadow of the Boy, he turned from the rubble they’d been clearing in the stairwell that led to the collapsed rooms beneath the tower. The Old Man dropped his crowbar weakly and set to gathering what little wood he could find.
It was full dark and the stars were overhead when the goat finally began to roast. In the hours that followed, the three of them drank lightly from their canteens as their mouths watered and they watched the goat.
Close to midnight, the Old Man cut a slice off the goat and tasted it. He handed it to his granddaughter and she began to chew and hum, which was her way.
“It’s ready, Poppa.”
They fell to the goat with their knives, eating in the firelight, their jaws aching as grease ran down their chins.
We were hungrier than we thought.
Yes.
Chapter 25
The Boy found the black case underneath a desk beneath the collapsed roof of the basement he’d crawled through under the tower.
“I found it!” he shouted back through the dust and the thin light their weak flashlights tried to throw across the rubble.
“Are there words written on the side of the case?” the Old Man called through the dark.
I must remember what Natalie told me to look for. The words she said we would find. What were they?
Pause.
Maybe he doesn’t know how to read. Who could have taught him?
“Project Einstein,” shouted the Boy.
Who taught him how to read?
“That’s it. Bring it out.”
Later, in the last of the daylight beneath the broken tower, they looked at the dusty case. On its side were military codes and numbers. But the words Natalie, General Watt, had told him to look for, the words were there.
Project Einstein.
I should be . . .
Excited? Happy? Hopeful?
But I’m not. It means we must go on now. It means we must go all the way.
Yes.
“Halt!”
The voice came from behind them. It was strong yet distant, as if muffled.
“Raise your hands above your heads!”
“Poppa,” whispered his granddaughter.
“Do it,” he whispered back. He noticed the Boy struggle to raise his left arm as quickly as the strong right one. Even then the left failed to straighten or fully rise.
Behind them, the Old Man heard boot steps grinding sand against the cracked tarmac of the runway.
If there is just one, we might have a chance.
The Old Man looked to see if the Boy’s tomahawk was on his belt. It was.
“Grayson! Trash! Move in and cover them.”
Movement, steps. Gear jingling and clanking together.
The voice stepped into view, circling wide to stand between the Old Man, his granddaughter, and the Boy and the broken tower.
He carried a gun. A rifle.
An assault rifle, remembered the Old Man.
His face was covered by a black rubber gas mask.
Beneath a long coat lay dusty and cracked black plastic armor.
‘Riot gear,’ thought the Old Man. Just like in the days before the bombs.
On top of his head was the matte-scratched helmet of a soldier.
At his hip, a wicked steel machete forged from some long-ago-salvaged car part lay strapped.
His boots were wrapped in rags.
Within his long coat, lying against the black plastic chest armor, a slender rectangle of dented and polished silver hung.
A harmonica.
The Old Man snatched a glance at the Project Einstein case on the ground.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” said the man in the dusty black riot armor as he raised his helmet and removed the rubber gas mask from his face. The man with the harmonica about his neck.
“And more importantly, where’d you get that tank?”
He was a few days unshaven.
He was young.
He’s just a man.
Like me.
But he’s young.
Like I once was.
So maybe it ends here. Like the dream I have done my best to avoid. It ends with these scavengers murdering me as my granddaughter watches.
It cannot end that way.
“What’re you doing out here?” repeated the Harmonica Man.
If I can get to my crowbar maybe the Boy will use his axe . . . Maybe.
“Listen,” said the Harmonica Man. “You need to tell me what you’re doing out here at the old base, right now!”
“They’re not with them,” said either Trash or Grayson from behind their masks.
“We don’t know that,” said the Harmonica Man. “And hell, they’ve got a tank.”
There is a moment in between.
A moment when things might go one way or the other.
A moment when those who are prone to caution, hesitate.
And those who are prone to action, act.
“We’re on a rescue mission,” said the Boy.
Silence.
Maybe the guns just dropped a bit.
Maybe the masked gunmen have softened their stance.
Maybe there are other good people.
Maybe, my friend. Just maybe.
“Who?” asked the Harmonica Man.
“I don’t know. He does.” The Boy points to the Old Man.
Everyone turns to him.
The Old Man nods.
“All right,” says the man. “We’ll lower our guns and you’ll tell us all about it. Then, we’ll see what happens next.”
The Old Man lowers his hands.
Should I?
What choice do you have? None that I can see now, my friend.
“There are some people,” begins the Old Man. “They’re trapped inside a bunker to the east. A place once called Colorado Springs. They need this device to get free.”
“What does it do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you with King Charlie?” asked the Harmonica Man.
“No. We don’t know any King Charlie.”
“How’d you get this tank?”
“I found it.”
The Harmonica Man thought about this, watching all of them.
The Old Man could see his granddaughter. Her mouth formed into a small “o.”
“Where will you go if we let you leave?”
If?
“We will go east and try to help those people.”
Silence.
“Why?”
Why?
Yes. Why, my friend?
“Because they need help.”
Harmonica Man lowered his gun and leaned it against his hip.
“We have food. Do you have any water?”
“Yes,” said the Old Man. “Some.”
“It’ll be night soon. Let’s eat and I’ll tell you why you might want to turn back.”
Chapter 26
Around the fire, sharing the goat and some wheat cakes the strangers have brought out from their patchwork rucksacks, they see the faces behind the black rubber gas masks.
Grayson is a young man. Not much older than the Boy. He is quiet and smiles with dark eyes. The Old Man knows he’s shy and that women find him handsome.
Tra
sh is a girl, a woman really. Maybe in her midtwenties. Her race is mixed. Maybe some Asian. Some black. Blond dirty hair. Her tight jaw and clenched teeth show she is older than the other two, but not by much. She does not speak.
‘She reminds me,’ thinks the Old Man, ‘of a wounded bird, or a good dog that was once mistreated.’
Harmonica Man’s real name is Kyle.
He is ruddy faced and swarthy and the Old Man knows that he is the kind of young man who would fight the whole world if he had a good reason to.
Names from Before.
Names.
“If you keep going east,” said Kyle as he chewed some goat meat, “there is only one island of sanity between here and Flagstaff. That’s the Dam, where we come from. Beyond that, I’ve heard there’s electricity in ABQ but that might just be something the Apache made up, ’cause they’re crazy. I don’t put much in what they say, especially these days.”
They eat around a fire next to the tank in the shadow of the broken tower. Night falls. Only Kyle talks. There is goat, dry wheat cakes, and warm water.
“Then there’s the bad news. Between you and that island of sanity is a small army of crazy. Even worse, something big is going on to the east and we don’t have much information other than what the Apache let slip when they come in to trade. The real truth is, I don’t know what’s going down out east. What we’ve heard is there’s a big, organized group, almost like an army come up outta Texas. They seem to follow some guy who calls himself King Charlie and what he’s all about doesn’t sound good. Slaves. Torture. Voodoo. Bad stuff. It was six months since we’d heard from Flagstaff when our bunch got sent out here, and that was a little over a year ago. But whatever’s going down out that way ain’t so good. The Apache, on a good day, are hard to deal with. But whatever’s going on beyond their lands is makin’ em even crazier than usual. So there’s that. Which still ain’t your biggest problem.”
The Old Man chewed some of the stringier goat meat, letting the newcomers enjoy the tender goat they’d seasoned with the last of their pepper.
“Your biggest problem,” continued Kyle, inspecting the rib he’d been gnawing on to make sure it was indeed devoid of meat and fat. “Your biggest problem is that small army between here and the Dam. You make it to the Dam, you can go forward. But we’ve been stuck out here for a year. They’ve got Vegas all booby-trapped up, never mind the radiation. Hell, we had a tank just like yours. I mean, maybe not the same, but old Art, he kept her running. We had some motorized flatbeds we got together and we’d run ’em up to the old air base at Creech and do some salvage. Well, that little army came in and cut us off a year ago. Now things are weird. We can’t get back to the Dam. They can’t get to this old place, which we think they want to real badly. They can’t attack the Dam ’cause they’d never make it to the front door. But word is, they’ve got a bigger army somwheres out to the east. If that’s actually the case, then that’s a game changer as the old say. In the end, there just ain’t no way through that madhouse for you and your tank.”